Welcome to the DriveTraffic blog whereby we aim to keep you up to date on all things digital marketing, with a particular emphasis on SEO.
The Legal Industry: Challenges and Opportunities
Law offices, from high powered firms to small solo entrepreneur ventures, face steep competition and an increasingly value-conscious customer base. While many lawyers, firm managers, paralegals, and legal assistants know that digital marketing (Google Ads,
Post Secondary Institutions: Industry Challenges
Post-secondary education institutions, including colleges, universities, and trade schools, are often unaware of where their digital marketing efforts are finding success - or falling flat. It can be overwhelming to narrow down which key performance indicators
I love learning...
As a matter of fact, I am self-taught in digital marketing! This did not exist in school when I started to work in the industry. Recently I came across a new app that I love. It is called
I’ve been reflecting on the wonderful contacts I made this past weekend at BlogJam Atlantic, the things I learned and what did the other attendees take away from my presentation?
What I Learned:
I loved hearing from Julie Cole of Mabel’s
As promised, 3 BlogJam attendees have won the opportunity to have their Google Analytics reviewed by Darlene at DriveTraffic Digital Marketing!
They are:
Laura Churchill Duke - curator of family activities in Annapolis Valley, over at Valley Family Fun.
Mischka Jacobs - Venn
I just finished watching a video about Facebook Messenger Marketing for Local Businesses by Tristan Adkins of Customhouse Media. This video is part of a series of training videos about local marketing put on by Local Marketing Institute.
In the video,
With over a billion users, YouTube reaches a substantial portion of the four billion people on the internet every day.
If your business isn’t posting videos, you are missing out. You’re missing out on traffic; you’re missing out on sales; you’re
Google rolled out their Expanded Text Ads (ETAs) last month, and they’re great!
The new ETAs or Expanded Text Ads give you more room to advertise your product, service or event, using:
An extra 30 character headline (you now
Thin content refers to a site that contains pages of content that do not bring value to the reader. Such pages are often duplicates of other pages on the site or provider very little information. This concept came about in
The vast majority of Canadians shop online and all indications are that we’re ramping up how much we spend in a major way: hitting close to $40 billion next year, an increase of some 500 percent in just 7 years.
So,
[A Definitive Answer to How Many Words Google Requires for SEO Purposes]
Size matters — but only in certain things, like ice cream cones.
When it comes to word count, however, bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better. Simply put: Longer content, in and
I've been hearing from a webmaster that I work with that WordPress will be coming out with some major changes by the end of the year - changes that could mean certain plugins no longer work, themes need to be
BrightLocal just announced their updated list of local citations for USA, UK, Canada and Australia. I was excited to check it out as there are a few sites that they consider "top citations" that just don't work - you can't
Google recently added a new feature to the insights section of Google My Business - the ability to see the locality from which people request directions to your business.
In Canada this means that if you have enough volume of people
Here in Canada, we are coming up on Easter Weekend. This means that many businesses will take the opportunity to have a 3 or 4 day weekend (especially consulting or B2B types of businesses that don't serve customers in a
Google Adwords has offered suggested keywords for a very long time - the process was helpful in that it decreased the amount of typing required but I rarely used 5% of what they suggested as I try to limit my
Google likes to change its rules, seemingly at random. This is especially true when it comes to the search engine results page (SERP). Two people can enter the identical keywords into Google and see entirely different results. While it’s not
A Google AdWords campaign is an effective way to target customers, but the popular marketing tactic wasn’t practical for companies that didn’t have access to a large list of customer email accounts until just last month. That is because Google
Typing a search query online or on a smartphone is so ‘last year’. With the calendar only days away from flipping over to 2018, it’s clear that voice search is a trend that will continue to grow rapidly. Thanks to
Enhancing site traffic and conversions are the most important goals of any e-commerce business. Our digital marketing experts have created a cheat sheet with simple changes you can make to enhance your ROI. From web design to SEO and social
With studies indicating that more than 80% of shoppers do online research before making a purchase, being visible is critical to e-commerce optimization. Your customers need to find you first in order to buy from you rather than your competition.
Brand credibility matters to online shoppers; a lot! What this means is that your e-commerce optimization efforts must include a solid trust-building strategy. Winning your customers’ trust is key to driving sales.
Our digital marketing credibility experts share 5 proven ways
Improving user experience (UX) can give your e-commerce optimization efforts a significant boost. With many Canadians preferring to shop online and hundreds of companies jumping in the fray to get a piece of the pie, your online store faces more
Whether you own a business or agency, you are already aware of the dynamic and evolving nature of the search engine optimization (SEO) landscape. Unless you are an experienced and trained digital marketing expert, you cannot provide your brand with
There is a new feature available that allows your prospects to book an appointment with you - right from Google My Business (which you might know as Google Maps).
This is a pretty new feature and not too many businesses are
Google recently announced it would open up its jobs database for other organizations to list jobs.
Here’s my preliminary assessment of the search engine:
Currently, the only jobs I see posted are from Google. Of course, that will likely change over time
If you're a local business and you still haven't set up your Google My Business account, you might be potentially losing two-thirds of your online customers. Google Knowledge Panel has become the new hotspot from where most of your local
If you're into ecommerce, you've got to consider this question: why would anyone buy from you? Why would people give you their credit card info and money? It's because they trust your business. They believe that you'll deliver them the
If you've been browsing the web for a few months or years, you'll be surprised to see the number of websites or mailing lists you're subscribed to. But you'll never know until you use Unroll.me.
Most of these websites you don’t
Recently we covered Skype as a communication and collaboration tool and discussed how its free version lacked the group video calling and other enterprise-grade capabilities. Today we bring you an excellent tool that enables small businesses to hold video conferences
So, you've been thinking about that site revamp and relaunch for months and years. And now that you have finally set aside the budget, you don’t want to repeat the same mistakes that you made on your previous site. Even
Skype enables you to make/receive online, phone or video calls, send/receives messages & images, share files or desktop screens with contacts, & more...
After reading hundreds of SEO prediction for 2017, I am convinced that predictions are also like opinions. Everyone has one. But here are the three absolute best predictions that I could find, predictions that really matter for your SEO.
Schema Markup
It's that time of the year when most of us review the past year and make plans for the next. It's also the time when Google and Bing release their most searched terms and SEO experts summarize the developments made
Is Gmail (or Outlook) your favourite email tool that you use for business every day? I love Gmail because it's simple, fast, and clutter-free. But it does have some serious limitations if you're really serious about your business.
For instance, you
Do you often stumble upon articles that you find fascinating, but don’t have the time to read? You probably should install a "save now, read later apps," and Pocket is arguably the best of the pack. More than 20 million
Optimizing your online presence for local searches can boost your traffic and sales by as much as 600% or more, according to some case studies. The reason is obvious. More than one-third of all searches and more than half (56%)
The year 2016 has been a big year for mobile SEO, thanks to the successive updates that Google has made to its mobile SERP and search algorithms. The latest change that has made many marketers do a double take was announced
In a previous article I discussed the "Featured Snippet," an upfront answer to the search term now appearing at the top Google spot for some search terms. Today, let's take a closer look at the People Also Ask section and
Is your site a lead magnet using pop-up boxes or forms to collect visitors' email addresses or other info? You need to act fast to retain your mobile traffic from Google. Here's why:
According to Google, pop-ups deteriorate the user experience
If you were basking at the top of Google search results for some of your keywords, you better check your rankings again. There's a new rank in town (two, actually) that might already be appearing on top of the SERPs
Did Microsoft just waste away $26.2 billion on acquiring LinkedIn? At $255 per active user, critics say it's a very expensive transaction. But Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella says it's great because it widens the market for Microsoft products like Office
In addition to regular Adwords advertising, DriveTraffic also specializes in running conversion-optimized Google Grants free advertising campaigns for nonprofits. Google offers free Adwords advertising of up to $10K per month to registered charities in Canada. We can help you make
Google made some earthshaking announcements recently, but the ones that got me the most excited were related to AdWords. Google indicates that over half of the searches now happen on mobile, so the only logical thing would be to "re-imagine"
Did you know restaurants are the most searched industry on mobile? Ninety-two percent of people surveyed have searched for restaurants using an app or a web browser. I decided to write this post specifically for restaurant owners/marketers in Ottawa, Ontario,
I really hate when a writer asks me this. Especially someone that professes to be an SEO Writer!
Why? Because for years Google has been saying to create content that meets the readers needs - they have not been saying to create
Monday, May 30th, 2016
During the webinar you’ll learn these Google Analytics Ninja Secrets:
Understanding the two major types of Google Analytics reports.
Traffic Acquisition – Find out which channels send the most traffic to your website.
Traffic Quality – Which channels are spamming
A product photo speaks a thousand words to your customers. People can't touch, feel, smell, or taste your product online. Photos are pretty much the only thing they depend on for taking the buying decision. For local businesses, high quality
Voice based queries are on the increase. Those queries tend to be longer (longer tail is the industry slang). Coincidentally Google is rewarding (e.g. providing greater visibility) to sites that have the best content. Best content is considered that which
Local search guru Mike Blumental reported in March that Google is starting to use reviews in determining which websites should be visible for restaurant searches containing the
words “best” or “cheap”. “Best restaurant” returned only listings with a minimum of 4-stars,
It is getting harder and harder to do digital marketing for free! If you have a Facebook page for your business, when you post content, you are lucky if Facebook shows it to 15% of your followers! Quite often the
Unique and compelling e-commerce product descriptions are crucial for SEO and conversions. Yet too many e-commerce sites have duplicate, poorly written, or no product descriptions at all. Poor or missing product descriptions also scare away your visitors. They come to
Recently Google made a change to take away ads on the right side of Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) (e.g. the grey boxes). The thought was that with increased usage of mobile, the right hand ads are not seen on mobile
A 5-minute Screaming Frog H Tag Analysis
Heading <h*> tags do matter for your SEO rankings. Placing keywords in your H1 and H2 tags and making your headlines creative and compelling are the two things you need to check your H
Faster sites create happier users and wealthier businesses. Slower loading time not only drives away users, but may also have a negative impact on your SEO rankings.
Today, I'll tell you about the third meta beast, or maybe not. Meta keywords are the harmless words that you or your users don’t see anywhere on your page or browser, unless they view the source of your page (right
If you were so far awed by the word 'meta', it simply means 'self-reference'. The term comes from creative art, but in the art of SEO, meta-data is simply the data about the data on your web page.
Why Meta Descriptions
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
6:30 PM (90 minutes)
101 Centrepointe Dr. Room 1B
Ottawa, Ontario
Content Marketing is essential for small businesses as a marketing tool. It is needed for both for improving SEO results and for Social Media marketing.
There's good news, and there's good news. Google has changed the name of 'Webmaster Tools' to 'Search Console,' so you need not be a webmaster to think about using this excellent platform. The other good news is that you can
"What's in a name…?" asked Shakespeare. If an SEO were to reply, the answer would be 'everything'. The name or the title of your page is the first and most important thing that search engine spiders track while ranking your
Monday January 18th, 2016
1:00 PM to 2:30 PM (EST)
80 Aberdeen St., Suite 100
Ottawa, Ontario
This course will introduce you to SEO and the tools and techniques required to understand how your website is visible to search engines such as Google.
I had used this tool in the past, then forgot about it. Recently I have been annoyed by the duplication of contacts on my phone (which is connected to Outlook and to my iPad) so decided to hunt down this
Believe it or not, $5,000 is what 22-year-old Canadian blogger Danielle Bernstein (@WeWoreWhat) commands for posting a single Instagram photo. It shouldn't come as a surprise, as that photo can make hundreds or even thousands of items sell overnight.
Who Are Influencers?
Influencers
The Google Local Pack, also known as the “Google 7 Pack” is now the “Google 3 Pack.” Google completed the move to the 3-pack across all countries and industries on Thursday, August 6th. This change has significant implications for local
Make no mistake. SEO will still be relevant in the foreseeable future. However, the point I'm trying to make is that SEO is more challenging and less effective than it used to be in the past. In other words, it's
More than 30,000 businesses use Infusionsoft. Most of them also have their own websites with Google Analytics (GA) installed. However, they usually don’t have their Infusionsoft data integrated into GA. This puts them in a blind spot as far as
Boost Your YouTube Marketing Strategy with Google Analytics
Is video a big part of your digital marketing strategy? If so, YouTube is likely an integral part of that strategy and you’re most likely promoting your videos on various digital platforms like
Did you know that B2B buyers are already 50–60% of the way into the buying cycle before they're even willing to speak to you? The already complex B2B buying behavior has been further complicated by the rise of online marketing.
If you are the Director (or VP) of Marketing and managing the company AdWords account on your own, there is a good chance you are not getting an ROI on your money OR your effort - unless of course you
Periscope seems to be the latest social media craze! More and more people are getting on it! If you are not familiar with this tool, it is owned by Twitter and is typically used by mobile devices. If you'd like to
Update: Ross from PaidInsights.com reached out to share a list of negative keywords that he has curated. This list is available on his blog or can be downloaded if you share your email address (which then puts you on the
You got scared off of broad match so you are wondering why you should consider modified broad match? It is much less scary but is the way that I use it is really about the same as phrase match therefore
Exact match is the most specific of all of the match types. It is referenced by square brackets around your target phrase and can be used for specific reasons:
All you have to do is surround each of your existing keywords with quotation marks and voila! You have phrase match.
Phrase match simply means that a user’s query (or what they are searching for) must include the phrase you are
So many people attempt AdWords on their own… and usually end up crying when they see how much it cost them and how little they got out of it.
With a few basic tips, you can actually reverse this scenario –
Today I received a fantastic newsletter from the Ottawa Public Library that showcases books on business networking prepared by OPL Business Librarians. Also included are useful tips about networking.
Check out the Ottawa Business Services multiple lists or their list of business
I logged into my AdWords account the other day and saw a notification about Google deleting keywords. Holy panic attack! I managed to pour a glass of wine and click the itty bitty learn more button at the bottom of
As mentioned, mobile friendly websites will get a rank boosting from Google starting April 21, 2015. It would appear that this is starting earlier as mobile sites are labelled as such when doing a search on a mobile device. See
I have been telling customers this for years - being #1 for "Ottawa plumber" is far from the only way that you will get traffic (and business) on the web! As mentioned in the post, Why You Should Not Google
Google is testing (or apparently has been for some time) a new layout on their SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) that looks like the previous "local pack" (usually 7 local listings plotted on a map) but this time it is
This is the first post for Tool Tuesdays! Every now and then on a Tuesday, we'll mention a particular tool that we love for one of these aspects of digital marketing ROI: credibility, visibility, usability or accountability.
Today's tool is SEO
Effective April 21, 2015 Google will be expanding their use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This means that users searching on a mobile device are less likely to have a non responsive (non mobile friendly) website show up in their listings.
Does
You have a business. You have a website. That site serves as the face of your business for people looking for the services you provide. Seems simple enough, right? Well, not so fast. Let’s look inside the thoughts of that
Stop Googling yourself. Seriously. Stop it.
Searching for your organization or company on Google to determine your ranking is not a quantifiable method of measuring your site’s performance. To tell you the truth, it’s an action that hardly justifies you spending
Version 34 of Firefox rolled out on Monday December 8. While new versions of Firefox are nothing new, there is a significant change in this version - Yahoo! is now the default search engine rather than Google!
According to Yahoo Tech,